Activist sentiment in Constituency Labour Party nominations suggests that David Miliband has a slender lead over Ed Miliband in the membership section of Labour’s electoral college. But evidence from those constituencies where there was a run-off between the two Milibands suggests that the younger brother may have a lead in second preferences.
Our appeal on twitter and by email to all CLP secretaries has delivered the full nomination results of 64 local parties where nominations took place and the votes of 1,610 Labour members. In votes cast from our sample of local Labour meetings, David Miliband has 35.3% of the vote followed by Ed Miliband (31.4%), Diane Abbott (14.4%), Ed Balls (10.1%), and Andy Burnham (8.9%). The results for the front runners are surprisingly similar to Labour List’s self-selective poll of Labour members which was used in Left Foot Forward’s model.
It is harder to make any inferences about second preferences since in the majority of cases the CLP either erroneously used first-past-the-post or there was a decisive winner in the first ballot. But in the 12 races for which we have information about a run-off between the two Milibands, Ed gained most second preferences in nine races, David in two, and they were tied in one. In these races, Ed picked up 54 votes while David gained 34.
Left Foot Forward has also spoken this week with a small group of Labour MPs who had nominated either Diane Abbott, Andy Burnham or Ed Balls. Again it is hard to make generalisations from such a small sample but the findings again reiterate how close the race has become. Of the nine willing to divulge a preference between the two Miliband brothers, five are for David and four for Ed. David’s second preferences came primarily from Andy Burnham backers while Ed’s came primarily from Diane Abbott’s.
If you have more information about your CLPs’ race, please send it editor@leftfootforward.org.
22 Responses to “Who will win Labour’s 2nd preferences?”
Mehdi Hasan
RT @leftfootfwd: LFF #LabourLeader survey: @Ed_Miliband takes lead in sample of CLP second preferences – http://bit.ly/aYz3UF
Milibairn
RT @leftfootfwd: LFF #LabourLeader survey: @Ed_Miliband takes lead in sample of CLP second preferences – http://bit.ly/aYz3UF
Joanne Milligan
Will, well done on trying to pull some kind of analysis together. I appreciate how difficult it is giving the scarcity of detailed and accurate information, the variety of ways in which CLPs made their decisions and the high number of supporting nominations won on first preferences. From the 55 CLPs on the list, for which there is useful and usable data, 28 were won in the first round so there’s no transfer data – 12 won by David, 10 by Ed M, and 2 each by Diane, Ed B and Andy.
Which brings me to numbers – I copied your google doc in to an excel spreadsheet and it appears your sums don’t add up! (or google docs formulas were misbehaving).
Of the 55 CLPs with useful and usable data (35 on your google doc either made no nomination or there was no 1st round or 2nd round data on preferences) David leads the pack on 1st preferences with 623 votes (36.76%), Ed M has 516 votes (30.44%), Diane 245 votes (14.45%), Ed B has 166 votes (9.79%) and Andy has 145 votes (8.55%). A total of 1695 votes.
In the 15 CLPs where there was a run-off between David and Ed M for the nomination, and for which data is available, Ed M picks up another 63 votes and David another 34 (out of a possible 140 which went to other candidates in 1st preferences). This brings David’s total to 657 and Ed’s to 579.
Happy to email you my spreadsheet.
Jo
Richard Angell
RT @Jo_Milligan Corrected sums on @leftfootfwd analysis of CLP votes puts @dmiliband more ahead in last rnd http://bit.ly/aYz3UF #dm4leader
Luke Akehurst
Unfortunately this data doesn’t tell you where the 2nd preferences of Abbott, Balls and Burnham supporters would go in the places where they are strongest – the CLPs they came first or second in.
It’s also not comparing like with like – some of these were all member meetings and others GCs or even ECs. So the all member ones distort the numbers.